Wednesday, 15 April 2015

Owl with long ears and Eagle with short toes

Today was the third consecutive one when temperatures hit 30C although it's forecast to change from tomorrow. Spring continues to turn up its delights one of which was a short toed eagle at the Braconne yesterday. I watched it floating above me until it was seen off by a buzzard,

Long eared owls are not migrants but Spring could be the best place to locate them when they have young as they are early breeders. The appearance of a very fluffy fledgling accompanied by one of its parents was an unexpected occurrence near the eoliens and entirely the result of noisy disturbance by a troupe of over twenty quad bikes passing over the plains on Sunday morning. I saw the adult again yesterday in the same small stand of trees. This is the first time I've come across this elusive species since I found two roosting in my garden a few years back.

Speaking of the garden, a nightingale began to sing there this evening and a male hen harrier has passed very close to the boundary today and yesterday. The serins are still buzzing about and cuckoos call constantly.

Just after seeing the owls on Sunday I watched two stone curlews in an adjacent field and then three more about a kilometre away. I always scan the fields for the sight of a little bustard but it seem more and more to be a futile exercise nowadays. I'm tempted to investigate the large grain fields further north to discover if some are still hanging on there.

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